It turned out that Scorpius did bother to write his grandmother, and repeatedly so, and after several letters, she gave in to his and his mother’s pleas and decided to give the girl one more chance.

“Listen, Carina,” Scorpius said as cautiously as he could. “I have a great wish...I know I am going to ask a lot of you, but please, could you just do it, for me?”

Carina turned to him. They were sitting in the Common room that Saturday afternoon, and she was watching the life under the frozen lake surface. It was still very cold outside, although it was already a mid-February.

“What is it?”

“I...well, I...I wrote to my grandma on the matter concerning you,” he said very quickly. “And she is willing to give you a chance. She wants you to take a blood test. Please, could you do it for me? I want to persuade them, I want to prove them wrong...”

“A blood test? But who would perform it here?” Had she known of this possibility, she would have taken it right away, as a foolproof way to persuade Narcissa Malfoy.

“Mum talked to Daphne and she talked to Montague and Montague should be able and willing to do it.”

“Daphne? You mean your aunt, right?”

“Er...yeah, sure, my aunt.”

“It’s weird you call her by name...I really can’t imagine calling my aunt by name. That would be just...as I said, weird.”

“Yeah, well,” Scorpius said quickly, “and what about the blood test?”

Carina frowned slightly at that obvious attempt to change the subject.

“All right, I will take it.” She agreed. “But whose blood will we use?”

“Grandma says it’s all arranged...come on, let’s go!”

He all but ran from the common room to their Head of House office, Carina trailing behind him. He knocked impatiently.

“I do, of course I do, but it’s just...if it works all right, I will persuade them, they’ll have to admit that I was right...”

This time, professor Montague let them in personally, expecting them, and she directed them to sit down.

“So,” she said. “Firstly, I’ll take a bit of both of your blood. What is the supposed degree of relation?”

“Third cousin.”

“Ah. Well, it should still be visible, although it might not be very clear...”

She tapped her wand on Carina’s forearm and a drop of blood appeared. She repeated the same on Scorpius arm and then took a little plate to them, on which she directed the drops with her wand. Then she started muttering some incomprehensible words under her breath, waving her wand in strange patterns. Both friends watched her breathlessly. Finally, a smoke cloud formed in the air in front of Professor Montague, dark grey in colour.

“Oh yes,” she said. “Yes, these two have a lot in common...even more then I’d expect, actually...tell me,” she turned to Carina. “Couldn’t there be more ways in which you are related?”

“You said something about that!” Scorpius exclaimed excitedly.

“Yes, but that was only through Lestranges, and you have no Lestrange blood in you, so that can’t be it...But we have the same old pure-blood families in our family trees, so that would probably be it...and also there might be something from the French part of my ancestry, after all, Malfoys are originally French...”

“Are we?” Scorpius asked, apparently surprised.

“Come on, look at the name! Does it sound English to you?”

“Not really.”

“See? That’s it...but you moved to Britain like six hundred years ago, so not many people know these days.”

“Well then,” Professor Montague said, “you definitely are Scorpius' relative. But Daphne sent me more blood to test...this is Astoria’s.” She took out a vial and let out a drop of blood on another, clean plate. “I have to bother you again,” she told Carina and took another drop of blood from her forearm. She repeated the spell and a cloud as white as snow appeared.

“Mmm...nothing, absolutely nothing. Very well then, this proves you are related through Draco’s part of the family...I have one more sample to test. This one is Narcissa’s.”

She repeated the procedure again, and the cloud that appeared this time was almost black.

“Very well,” Professor Montague muttered. “You are Scorpius’ relative and it gets stronger in Narcissa’s case...she can’t deny the facts...of course, she could say you are a Rosier, but why would you change your name then...and she can’t deny that you’re a pure-blood through and through, she has no one else in her family...”

She looked Carina straight into eyes.”I must say I am impressed. You know, even I had some doubts...but it seems you are a real Black. It’s only a pity we don’t have another one alive, to prove it beyond any doubt...there is Andromeda, of course, but she’s the same as Narcissa...”

She hesitated for a moment. “Not another one alive...but we could talk to Phineas, couldn’t we?”

“I beg your pardon,” Carina said. “But how would that help us?”

“Who is Phineas?” Scorpius asked, irritated.

“A Black, ex-Headmaster of this school, he would have a portrait in Headmaster’s office. I really would like to talk to him, I admit that, but I can’t really see how could he help us...”

“Nor can I, exactly,” Montague responded. “But it’s worth a try. I will talk to Headmaster about it. Go to your common room now, and I will let you know, should I get his permission.”